(We were waiting to front page this story until there was a little more “meat” on the bone; so now we’e bringing it out from under the radar at last. – promoted by Sue Prent)

*revised from previous post – emphasis added

Herald story; Posted on March 6, 2012 by VT Today:

Vermont Yankee reduces power to fix condenser

BRATTLEBORO – The Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant had to reduce power Tuesday because of problems with its condenser, a spokesman for Entergy Nuclear said.

http://www.vttoday.com/vermont…

Problem is not new, from the above Herald story:

“It is the second time in recent months that Yankee has had to reduce power because of problems with the condenser.”

Chickens come home to roost:

By: Bob Audette, Reformer Staff, Brattleboro Reformer, [Jun 11,2009]

Earlier this week, Yankee reported that the plant’s condenser, which acts as a radiator to cool down steam from the plant’s reactor, had developed a leak of about one half gallon a minute. About 360,000 gallons of river water flow through the condenser per minute[..]Yankee technicians are planning to power down the reactor to about half its capacity to see if they can find the source of the leak. Last year, technicians were unable to identify the location of a similar leak.

In 2003, Gundersen testified that the condenser could prove to be a problem for continued reliable operation of the plant. He suggested that Entergy is not willing to pay the $100 million price tag for replacement unless it gets approval for extended operation.

The oversight panel found critical issues that need to dealt with quickly if Yankee is to be maintained reliably, wrote Gundersen in his reply to Shumlin.

“The recent discovery of further condenser tube degradation shows just how prescient the panel’s report is and how important the implementation of our recommended modifications and management changes is to the continued reliability of Yankee,” he wrote.

http://fairewinds.com/content/…

Testomony regarding replacement:

http://www.necnp.org/files/doc…

One short year ago:

“If they do decide to remain open, I don’t see them running for longer than until 2016, maybe 2017,” said Gundersen. Why? Because at that point the plant’s main condenser would have to be replaced. A new condenser could cost as much as $200 million – its price is largely dependent on the global cost of copper.”

http://7d.blogs.com/blurt/2011…

Problems presaged by Fairewinds Associates 10 years ago, Arnie Gundersen testimony:

16 Q5 Please give another example of a component likely to have an adverse effect on

17 reliability under extended power uprate conditions.

18 Response:  Another outstanding example of a worn component that is not likely to

19 withstand the stresses of extended power uprate through end of license in 2012 is the

20 steam condenser[..]  

http://www.fairewinds.com/cont…

Much more in this testimony shows the degradation of the plant at that time, it sure didn’t fix itself. Clearly, Entergy Louisiana always intended to run it into the ground & leave the mess to VT.

Backstory & overarching issue here is that key plant components are falling apart & will continue to fail. Embrittlement & metal fatigue are both age related conditions which will not go away, overiding ANY & ALL other issues making them moot. Entire issue of the present & other steady string of ongoing ‘mishaps’ started after  purchase of the plant by Entergy Louisiana & are due to longstanding faulty & incomplete maintenance procedures. A partial listing:

http://www.nuc.berkeley.edu/no…

– At present, plant continues to leak radioactive nuclear waste into ground & groundwater

– Entergy Louisiana refuses to test the previously contaminated onsite drinking water well

– Leaking likely began in 2006/2007 as evidenced by sinkholes which were apparant on the site of VY in 2008, although a whistleblower claimed a leaking pipe in 2005 was repaired w/a “sealant.”

“It is likely that the Vermont Yankee leak existed for at least two years prior to its detection in the monitoring. well.”

[Detected 11/2009]

page 10:

http://www.leg.state.vt.us/jfo…

– Pipes are corroding due to microbiological corrosion from the inside out, as well as outside in:

“The pipes in the vault corroded from the inside out and not from the outside inward so there are two different failure mechanisms. Prior to the problems at Vermont Yankee, the NRC had only been concerned about pipes that corrode from the outside. Mr. Gundersen told the NRC that it should also be concerned about pipes that are not in contact with dirt and fail as a result of internal corrosion.”

Related:

http://vtdigger.org/2011/01/15…  

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The votes are in and counted in the capital city, and incoherence is the order of the day.

First, a big tip of the hat to our founder and new City Clerk, John Odum. We knew things were going to be weird for a city clerk race when John’s opponent started putting up yard signs, which upped the ante for both campaigns from the beginning. At the end John came out on top with a very close 1204-1086 victory, and you know what that means: time to get up and go to a real job tomorrow, John!

In other races, though, it’s very hard to make sense of what the people are saying. The race that got the most attention wasn’t an election for any office, but ballot issues 10 and 11, to establish local options sales and rooms & meals taxes for the city of Montpelier. The Council put them on the ballot and almost every downtown merchant fought against them. You can’t go through downtown without seeing the anti-tax posters in the store windows. (And I want to express a big thank-you to Miller Sports, Onion River Sports, Rite-Aid, and any other community-supporting businesses who did not oppose the local options taxes.)

The sales tax went down by a margin of about 2-1, the rooms and meals tax failed by a smaller margin, just under a couple of hundred votes.

The anti-tax forces were led by Thierry Guerlain, who started a group called Vibrant and Affordable Montpelier, and who was also on the ballot for City Council for District 2. Guerlain’s anti-tax, anti-city-government message was apparently popular, as he also defeated twelve-year council veteran Nancy Sherman by over 200 votes, 574-371.

So this would make you think that the anti-tax message carried the day, huh? Well, maybe not so much. Although the proposals to tax commuters failed, every single spending proposal passed, most of them by wide margins, more than 2-1. Whatever anyone else is saying about whether Montpelier city government is spending too much money, Montpelier voters clearly do not agree.

So to sum up: the anti-tax guy who claims he wants  to take some of the burden off property tax payers  gets elected; the only proposal on the ballot that would actually reduce burdens on property tax payers is defeated; and all the spending proposals, which will only add to our property tax burdens, pass.

By replacing outgoing mayor Mary Hooper with John Hollar, who ran unopposed, and Nancy Sherman with Thierry Guerlain, Montpelier’s city council has taken a sudden turn to the right. We’ll see if what the voters get is what they actually want.  

Just a quick note to all – I managed to pull out my run for Montpelier City Clerk by a mere 5%: 1204 to 1086.

I’ll get on here tomorrow for a more formal farewell, as I retire from partisan warriorship into nonpartisan, apoliticality – but I wanted to let folks know. Thanks for the support.

Today’s Valley News has a story about the station that carries Rush Limbaugh et al. in the Upper Valley and Kearsarge/Sunapee region of New Hampshire. The reaction: No plans to take him off the air, and nothing much from local advertisers.

The station is actually two: WNTK-FM in New London NH, and WUVR-AM in Lebanon NH. They are owned by the very conservative Bob Vinikoor, who’d be philosophically disinclined to dump Rush unless it was really bad for business. And personally, he doesn’t see a problem with Limbaugh’s toxic rants.

Vinikoor, the WNTK owner, said he was satisfied with Limbaugh’s apology, but added, “It was still a pretty poor choice of words, and the wrong thing to say.”

Yeah, as we’ve noted before, it wasn’t a “poor choice of words,” it was a three-day torrent of horrible words. And when you do a talk show like that, you plan out what you’re going to say. It’s not scripted, and you want it to sound off-the-cuff, but he had his talking points before he went on the air, and he knew exactly what he was going to do.  

As for the advertisers, the Valley News spoke with a few of them, and only found one that was considering a pull-out (geez, the double entendres are almost as bad as with Santorum). Which isn’t terribly surprising; many local business owners are quite conservative, and like Vinikoor, inclined to advertise on Rush because they like him. Unless it was really bad for business. A sampling:

Steve Gunnerson, the administrator for Newport-based Summercrest, an assisted living and senior community, said he wasn’t concerned because Limbaugh had apologized.

“With an apology, that helps a lot,” he said.

And Bill Bates, manager of R.P. Johnson & Son, a building materials company with stores in Sunapee and Andover, N.H., also said he was satisfied that Limbaugh had apologized. “If someone is man enough to apologize, I think you have to accept it and go on,” Bates said.

So, look not to the Upper Valley for a mass movement against Rush Limbaugh.

One rather pathetic note: WNTK put up an online poll about Rush, and got a grand total of 26 responses. Twenty-six. They’ve either got a tiny audience, or a remarkably tech-unsavvy one. (A combination, I think.) Of the 26, 11 wanted him off the air, five who said his apology was insufficient, and 10 who said the apology should settle the matter. (I couldn’t find the poll on their website. Either they’ve closed the poll or they’ve got a really crappy website. Or both.)

BTW, I haven’t had the chance yet to listen to my local Limbaugh carrier (Lysol! Where’s my Lysol?). When I do, I’ll start totting up the local advertisers.  

Today, the towns of Eden and Lowell are deciding whether to accept federal Superfund money to pay for cleanup of the former Vermont Asbestos Group mine. Cleanup has been recommended by the state Agency of Natural Resources.

But not by Governor Shumlin. In a comment last Friday while walking down the Church Street Marketplace in Burlington, the Governor dumped all over his own agency.

“That asbestos has been there a long time,” he said, when he was asked why he has left the question of whether the state should seek Superfund rehabilitation of the site up to a vote of the two towns on Tuesday.

Shumlin indicated the waste piles aren’t posing a threat that would require action and added, “It’s better to let sleeping dogs lie.”

Problem, Gov. The sleeping dogs aren’t in peaceful repose; they’re migrating downstream. Your own agency says so.

After the jump: Multiple violations and pointed questions.

Ongoing erosion of asbestos tailing/waste rock piles is impairing downstream wetlands and streams, which are impacted with asbestos-containing sediments. Without stabilization measures, the asbestos-containing sediments will migrate further downstream.

This impairment is a violation of the Vermont Water Quality standards and the Federal Clean Air Act.

…Sediment discharged from the mine site contains asbestos, which by state and federal definition is a hazardous material.

…The site is also not in compliance with applicable regulations, including the state’s Solid Waste Rules, Stormwater and Wetland Regulations.

There are doubts in Eden and Lowell about the wisdom of a cleanup. Will it be fully funded from start to finish? Would a partial cleanup, or a cleanup in progress, be worse than nothing? I can understand these concerns, and if I lived there, it’d be a tough choice.

But if I lived in a community downstream from the mine, I’d wonder why in hell I don’t get a vote on carcinogens in my water, and why the people of Eden and Lowell get to decide whether or not to continue violating a passel of state and federal regulations.

Me, I wonder how I’d feel if I worked in the Agency of Natural Resources and my Governor was going out of his way to sabotage my work.

And I wonder how far he’s willing to take his cavalier attitude toward state and federal environmental law.  

Yes, Mitt Romney is a terrible political candidate. Sure, Santorum could embarrass Romney in Ohio. Gingrich could raise questions by winning Georgia. And Paul could upset Romney in some small caucus state.

And of course, Romney will continue to stick his foot in his mouth and say things to remind everyone he is an out of touch rich guy.

It just doesn’t matter.

On a 1 to 10 scale for candidates (with 1 being George McGovern and 10 being Ronald Reagan), Mitt Romney is, at best, a 1.2. But since all of his GOP current and former opponents are precisely negative infinity, it just doesn’t matter.

Mitt Romney has already won the GOP nomination-we all might as well come to grips with it.

So why do I claim Romney has a 2 in 3 chance of beating Obama?

For starters, contrary to popular belief, the GOP will rally around Romney. Why? Because the base of the Party is motivated by one thing only: hatred of President Obama-nothing else. Romney is irrelevant to that equation.

Some political insiders persist in spreading the idea that it would not be logical for Tea Party members and fervent conservatives to support Romney, given his numerous past liberal positions on social issues, not to mention Romneycare. Astute observers will instantly spot the flaw in the previous sentence: I used the word “logical” and “Tea Party” in the same sentence.

Remember, the Tea Party ostensibly stands for eliminating Washington of its career politicians and insiders, traditional values and is in favor of reducing government spending. So for much of the last 3 months most self-professed Tea Party members have supported Newt Gingrich, a 35 year Washington career politician who has enriched himself while making government bigger, all the while showing contempt for traditional values.

If the Tea Party can pretend to love Newt out of principle, then they will surely find a way of supporting Romney out of some other string of illogical nonsense.

Romney will have a unified party behind him.

There are three primary scenarios for the fall election.

Scenario one. The economy continues to improve. Team Obama makes no flubs. Optimism flourishes. Romney runs a lackluster, flub-filled campaign. Yes, under this scenario, Obama wins, but not by a large margin.

Scenario two. Europe’s economy takes a major tumble this summer. Unemployment numbers for the U.S. trend up in September and October. Optimism plummets. The only message that resonates with independent and moderate voters is “the economy and unemployment are awful and getting worse. Obama had a chance. Let’s try the other guy-he couldn’t be worse.” If this happens, Obama loses to Romney. The same scenario applies if China’s real estate bubble bursts or any other economic problem infects the world economic bloodstream.

Scenario Three. The economy holds, but the Roger Ailes/Fox News/Karl Rove/Rush Limbaugh/GOP message slime machine does what it does best, it creates an utterly phony issue out of thin air that destroys Obama’s credibility and allows Romney to win the White House.

Republicans might not be very good at governing, but no one can deny that they are great at sliming, vilifying and character assassinating Democrats. Here’s a quick review:

1.       1988. Michael Dukakis was destroyed because of “Willie Horton ad” nonsense regarding a furlough program that most Republican governors in the country had also implemented.

2.       1992, 1996. True, the best Democratic politician of the last 70 years, Bill Clinton, was able to prevent the GOP slime machine from destroying his campaigns. But let’s not forget, the GOP propaganda mill did convince a majority of Americans that their taxes had gone up, that the deficit was worse than ever and that the economy was shrinking in 1994. None of those things were true, but those lies resulted in the GOP takeover of the House and led the ground work for the successful Ken Starr Witch Hunt and the impeachment of Clinton in 1998.

3.       2000. We all remember how Al Gore got himself in trouble by lying, exaggerating and claiming “I invented the Internet” and that he was the inspiration for the characters in “Love Story.” The only problem is that he never actually said these things (I dare you, try to find a literal quote anywhere of Gore saying “I invented the Internet” that didn’t have its origins in a GOP press release). It turns out that the GOP message machine just created the scandal of “Gore is a liar and exaggerator” out of thin air and through constant repetition, it became a reality.

4.       2004. John Kerry, for all his flaws as a candidate (and yes, there were many) was a genuine war hero. Bush was a draft dodger and a national guardsman who appears to many to have gone AWOL. But the GOP Slime Machine created its “Swift Boat” campaign and they successfully inverted reality until most independent voters perceived Bush as the war hero and Kerry as the coward.

5.       2008 was a rare misstep for the GOP message machine. GOP slime merchants were obsessed with Hillary Clinton and just assumed she would be the Democratic Nominee. They were so excited about the prospect of reusing their greatest “Slime Hillary” hits that they weren’t thinking clearly. They thought all they’d have to do is trot out the “Hillary killed Vince Foster” nonsense or “”Hillary is a Lesbian” garbage and win. So they were uncharacteristically caught flat-footed when the unknown Obama won the nomination running against an 8 year record of Bush-GOP incompetence.

But since the 2008 campaign, the GOP slime machine has regained its footing and has continued doing what it does best: creating completely phony BS scandals about a Democratic president and then getting not only the conservative media but the mainstream media to obsess over it for months at a time. Birth certificates? Obama is a Muslim? The Administration hates Catholics? At this point, the only thing that should surprise us about the right wing message machine is if they don’t wage an all out 2-month war claiming Obama personally poisoned Andrew Breitbart.

The bottom line is that the GOP Message Machine has an excellent quarter century record of slimy accomplishment. And this machine couldn’t care less whether they or anyone else likes the GOP nominee. The only difference between 2012 and other years like 2004 or 1988 is money. This year the Republicans will have at lease several hundreds of millions of dollars more (via Super PACs) to run completely phony, BS, manufactured ads to demonize Obama.

And this is why Mitt Romney is the clear-cut, prohibitive favorite to be the next President of the United States.

TJ Walker is the founder of AmericanLP www.americanlp.org, a Democratic Super PAC.

(A little fantasy, on the heels of GMCR’s unsubtle arm-twisting.)

A Milton woman held a news conference at the Statehouse today, to promote her bid for state tax relief.

23-year-old Sally Johnson, a swing-shift clerk at Maplefields and part-time student at the Community College of Vermont, says if the Legislature fails to lower her tax burden, she will have to consider moving out of state. “I’d really like to stay here, and fully intend to make job-creating investments in heating oil and prescription drugs,” she said, balancing her toddler son on her hip, “but I need a little help to make it economically viable.”

The Shumlin Administration was quick to respond. “We simply cannot afford to lose Ms. Johnson,” said gubernatorial amanuensis Jeb Spaulding. “Because she immediately spends every dime she makes on the necessities of life, she has a direct economic impact that reaches far beyond her relatively meager lifestyle.”

House Speaker Shap Smith and Senate President John Campbell promised swift legislative action on the issue.

(Yep, just a fantasy.)

 Update and correction after the jump: An interesting sidenote has come to our attention: one state lawmaker has a hefty financial stake in Green Mountain Coffee Roasters.

So Green Mountain Coffee Roasters needs a $250,000 VT tax break?

The Vermont House is considering changes in a tax detail that involves a high tech K-cup packaging machine and may yield Green Mountain Coffee Roasters an estimated tax break of $250,000 per year. Vermont News Bureau reports that under question, again is the tax on a portion of a high tech machine that performs “secondary” packaging.

Green Mountain hadn’t been paying tax on those machines until 2007, when tax auditors ruled the company ought to be paying tax on the portion of the machine related to stuffing K-cups into cartons. The company settled for $250,000.

Predictably GMCR is also debating whether it may or may not locate a future K-cup processing unit here in Vermont. Also by defining where manufacturing ends and packaging begins for tax purposes the issue might have implications for state revenue from future business taxes.

Administration officials say the bill “clarifies” an exemption designed to encourage companies like Green Mountain to locate their manufacturing operations in Vermont.  

“This is the type of production equipment we’re going to see more of in different industries,” Secretary of Commerce Lawrence Miller said last week. “And it’s those companies on the cutting edge that we want to attract.”  

At least one lawmaker, however, says the bill opens up yet another tax loophole, expanding by one the number of exemptions that now cost this state more than $1 billion annually in foregone revenue.  

Continued… They need a break?  

This tax break routine follows a well worn pattern of business leverage

GMCR’s director of taxes, Marge McDonnell says it’s a price tag [VT tax] that could compel the company to locate its new K-cup packaging operation somewhere other than Vermont.

It is a most gentle blackmail when Xyz widget corporation threatens not expand new activities here (or even bolt the state) if they don’t receive a gift …eh incentive. Any new loophole as with all the other loopholes will have to be made up elsewhere in Vermont’s budget. Sweeteners are for some and cuts are for others.

One international business publication notes that GMCR’s three-year compound annual growth rate is 74 percent. At the end of this years’ first quarter GMCR revenue was $1.15 billion, up more than 100 percent over the same period last year. They need a break?

Update: Vermont State Senator Hinda Miller, who is listed in a recent SEC insider transaction filing as “Director,” in February sold 25,000 shares of GMCR stock. She currently has 88,452 shares of Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, Inc. stock currently worth $1,651,410. Among her committee assignments are the Senate Committee on Economic Development, Housing and General Affairs and the Senate Committee on Finance.

Correction: Senator Miller sits on the Senate Committee on Health and Welfare and Senate Committee on Appropriations NOT on the committees listed above. I mistakenly referenced outdated information .(BP)

The question is: if this tax break issue in some form or another makes it to the Senate, will Senator Miller abstain from any vote on a Vermont State tax gift to a company in which she is a large stakeholder?  Stay tuned.  

(For Rush to write 500 times on the blackboard, with his fingernails.)

your mother and your grandmother

and your sister and your wife

and your daughter and her lover

and all the other women in your life

yes I see we have another backlash

like Iron Men* and Hillary

centuries now from Salem

and women are still being pilloried

so they get a box of roses

instead of an ERA

and forget about full health care

haven’t you listened to Rush today?

and even the perverted Catholic Church

wants to put them in their place

and all the candidates are waffling

an unmitigated disgrace

but us girlie-men of yesteryear

would like to thank you on this day

for raising us and loving us

and putting down the toilet seat everyday

it looks like we’ve all got a ways to go

and the nitwits are making confusion

they’re saying that women run the world

some kind of Jung delusion?

if women really ran the world

would we be in Afghanistan?

would a woman be sitting on death row

for using a frying pan on her battering man?

I hope some day you really do run the world

and make us clean up all our messes

and make us stop being assholes

and enjoy what your spirit blesses

so have a good day this Thursday

you really deserve more than one day

cause the bullshit will be back on Friday

ruining everybody’s day

Happy March 8!!!

Peter Buknatski

Montpelier, Vt.

* I had this ‘cringe’ about Robert Bly and the Iron Men back in the late 80s-90s.  I felt that a bunch of guys sitting around a campfire in the woods talking about their mothers raising them and their fathers not being there for them was somehow kind of…well…guy-bonding…and off the point.  Like:  “Gee, if my dad had been around more, my mom wouldn’t have made me take ballet lessons and clean the litter box.  Hey, pass the tom-toms.  Did anybody bring the night crawlers?  I brought the beer.”  

Now my dad taught me stuff like bowling, baseball, football, pool, shooting guns, boxing, cursing, Polack jokes, gambling, drinking, womanizing–Guy Stuff.  Good thing he wasn’t around all that much.  So, when Iron Men came out, and guys were sitting around the campfires, I wondered what their daddies taught them.  And I wondered what they talked about–like:  “My dad was sure one big asshole.  He used to hit my mom.” or:  “My dad wanted me to join the marines.  He scared the shit out of me.”

Or, did they say things like:  “I wish my dad had taught me how to make a bed.  I could have joined the marines.”  or:  “I wish my dad had taught me how to run a vacuum.  I’m still afraid of vacuums.”

Tom-Toms.  It sounded like some exorcising ritual.  Exorcising what?  And whom?  I may be totally wrong on Iron Men, but I’m going with my gut feeling–that’s what a guy does.

Whatever.  (Guy term)